Life is changing, and the change is good

On October 1st, I was prepping for an open house/birthday party at our place. In the middle of cleaning our living room, my mom calls. I thought she'd be calling about the queso dip she was bringing that night or the desserts she was making for Sunday dinner. Instead, she begins to read the Facebook message that she had just received from her first daughter, that she had given up for adoption in 1977.

A flood, and I do mean a flood, of emotions rushed through me. Avalanche, hurricane, blizzard, hot sunny day, I mean I felt it all. I knew. I knew that she was out there. When we were little, my mom told my sister and me about a sister that was out there. We knew the day was going to come, but for me, I didn't expect it to be October 1st.

I stopped short and just kind of sat on my sofa, overwhelmed, anxious, extra sensitive, and shocked. I started tearing up. What do you do with that?

The next day my sister D, who I grew up with and who is my best friend, shows me a picture during church service on her phone. I start crying again. She looked like us. She looked like my mom. It was almost scary. I mean, you sort of expect some similarities in seeing a half sibling, but it was sort of uncanny.

Now she had more than a name, she had a face. She was real, and she was in our lives.

I got nervous because I know the scary that is out there in the world. The hateful, wretched people I've encountered, or even just the people that I don't click with, but have no issues with. What is this woman's personality going to be like? What is she interested in? What does she do? Will she hate us? Will she hurt my mom? Her mom.

Well, only time could give us the chance to find out. Which was really scary as hell. We had a Skype conversation about a week or so later. She was cheerful, funny, made facial expressions we had all perfected. She teaches fashion design in Georgia and is very creative. There are so many things we had in common it really felt like she was never really gone from us.

I know this is beginning to sound like some Nicholas Sparks novel excerpt, but bear with me.

Our sister came to visit this past weekend. We had a great time just being sisters and family. It was comfortable. We were siblings. My mom was over the moon.

On Saturday, my beautiful and uber talented friend Melissa Oholendt captured pictures of us for the first time reunited. She sent us a few preview pictures from our shoot, and I'm happy to share them with you.